


the force that words contain

by CosmicDusty



Series: the force that words contain [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Eventual Smut, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, Possible smut, Slow Build, Slow Burn, probably mostly angst, takes place before the events of TFA
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-05-24 12:43:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6154111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CosmicDusty/pseuds/CosmicDusty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You're taken from the ruins of your peaceful village by the First Order; a certain man wants to find out why a person bred only to feel compassion and empathy contains so much anger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. prologue

Your parents had taught you well, you swear on the stars they had. Growing up in a small foraging village hidden deep in the forests of your home planet, Alc, they had learned the same, passing their knowledge onto you; in the case of a threat, run or hide, or some combination of the two. Just never, ever, fight. You were taught the ways of your peaceful village, and you took it to heart. Talk out conflicts. Protect those who cannot protect themselves. Forage for your food.

You love this way of life. You’ve never known different, and you are satisfied. You take care of the village younglings, the children too small to head out into the forest with their parents, and it is part of your duty to help them learn and understand as you had done at their age. Peace is everything. 

But when you become the hunted, when you can feel the young ones in your charge quaking in terror behind you… when your family lies dead on the floor just outside your hiding spot and you can smell the singed flesh from the fatal blaster shots, all of their teachings fly out the window. You shove aside every instinct begging for you to stop as you leap out of the closet, screaming in rage and fear, onto the back of the lone stormtrooper who killed your family in cold blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly have no clue what I'm doing!! Kylo seems so hard to write; I guess I just like to suffer :0
> 
> this is just the prologue, so there'll be much more going on in the next chapter!


	2. chapter one

Your hands cover the eyes of the helmet and they let out a shout of surprise, spinning around to get a shot at their assailant only to realize the attack is coming from _on_ them. You shift so your forearm is covering their vision, and you begin punching the helmet with your free hand, a steady stream of shaky curses rolling uncertainly off your tongue; when your limited list runs out, you fall into a dejected sobbing, your punches turning to halfhearted smacks. You can’t bring your family back and you can’t even properly curse the person killed them.

The stormtrooper has been attempting to shake you off all this time but you hold fast, even when the sound of heavy boots approach at a run; you’re pried off and thrown to the floor, a blaster muzzle slammed between your eyebrows hard enough to make your vision swim, but not meant to knock you out.

“Do it,” you choke. Maybe their bloodlust will be satisfied with one more kill; maybe they won’t bother to search the rest of your home. If it saves the kids, you would die happily. The finger tightens on the trigger; you squeeze your eyes shut.

“Wait.” The command rings in your ears and you hear the troopers straighten up. “This one is a village native?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And she attacked one of you?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Don’t kill her. I want to find out why she’s different.” Your brow is furrowed as the muzzle of the gun is removed from your forehead. You open your eyes, finding the owner of the synthetic voice already sweeping his way out your front door, black cape billowing behind him. But then, a cough, its source not you or any trooper. He stops. Turns around.

“Did you complete your search of the house?” His tone, even filtered through a mask, is accusatory. You tense.

“I… sir, I had no time when she…” The trooper who you had jumped is being lifted, blaster falling from their hands as they claw at their throat. Your own breath hitches; you think they might die. Your mind leaps to the kids still clutching each other behind the thinnest barrier of clothes.

And then the trooper is released. The man in the helmet who you now understand to be Kylo Ren, a horror story told by villagers now here in the flesh, says, “Find them.”

It takes all of ten seconds for the younglings to be ordered out, their cluster now cowering before the towering form of the First Order’s own force-sensitive. When he takes a step closer to them, it feels natural that you would rush in front of them, spreading your arms as if the whole lenght of them in the way can protect the tiny ones.

Kylo Ren stops mere inches from where you stand, and you can feel yourself shaking but you don’t move from your position, even as you feel him observing you. It’s a full lingering moment of near complete silence - save for your shallow breaths and the soft crying behind you - before he takes a half-step back and turns his head to a trooper.

“Take the girl to the ship.”

“And the younglings, sir?”

“Are they of trainable age?”

“Most, sir. Some are too old.”

“Bring the useful ones.”

With that command he is gone, and you’re left to be half-carried by two stormtroopers, kicking and screaming, to the ship. Halfway across the clearing where normally the adults would be returning with food at this time, bloody bodies are strewn about like ragdolls. You recognize them all; you recognize that no one was spared. You especially recognize the sound of six blaster shots ringing out. A hopelessness that you had tried to hold at bay washes over you, and you fall limp, a despair as if you had lost your own children flooding your mind until you go numb.

Your first time among the stars is spent in a holding cell separate from your remaining younglings, this stupor keeping you silent and still as your world effectively implodes around you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the prologue and this chapter were really just setting up the rest of the story; it'll get much more interesting (and there will be much more Kylo) from here on out ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)


	3. chapter two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry it's been so long since i've updated! i had some family stuff going on but it's calmed down now uvu  
> i hope you enjoy this chapter!

It’s a deep unnatural groaning that wakes you, the shifting of metal, hisses of steam and clanks of boots outside your door; a reminder of people working as you sit idle. Trapped. 

The pristine grey of these four walls only serves to depress you more; back home, every wall was painted in cheerful yellows and oranges stained pale with sunlight and cracked from the frequent earthquakes that made your planet unsuitable for proper colonization. Yours was one of the only villages on the entirety of Alc. You try not to think about the others, if they were attacked as well, but the images of carnage continue to flash through your mind, and something in you knows that none of them were spared.

So, oh stars, it is so satisfying when you start splattering these walls with red. You see your knuckles connecting over and over again, the skin tearing away, feel the pain of the blows, but it’s all far away. You’ve disconnected. Your fists don’t loosen even when you collapse to the ground, leaning your forehead against the cold metal below the mess you’ve made.

“Has the wall done something to offend you?”

You groan, further interrupting the constant mechanical hum of this place. Your head aches. You’re starting to feel the sting in your knuckles.

“What do you want with me?” You ask tiredly, not bothering to turn and face the man behind you. It’s not like he’ll face _you_. You would be stuck staring into cold metal, only it would be staring back.

He doesn’t answer, so you continue, “Why are you keeping me here? I know nothing useful. I’ve never even been to a neighboring village, let alone anywhere that could supply me with information you’d find interesting. So what’s the point?”

The mask nods. “You’re right, you don’t have any information.”

“So why--” you start to blurt, before he raises a hand, motioning for you to be silent. You shut your mouth.

“You interest me. You’ve become… a pet project of mine.”

Your heart stutters. Pet project? To this beast of a man? Your mind conjures up flickerings of torture, endless, until he tires of your pain. You would rather the saber right now.

“Relax. I’m merely curious about you.”

You press your fingers down onto your thighs to still their trembling.

“Curious about what? I can tell you my life story in two sentences. I gathered plants in the wood for food. When I tired of that I volunteered to care for and teach the younglings.” You nearly choke on the word; you dig your fingers in deeper.

A hum, then: “Turn around.” You don’t want to; you won’t.

“Fine. Tell me your name.”

“I’m sure you know my name.”

“I want to hear you say it.”

_‘No,’_ you think. _‘I won’t.’_ There’s a rustling of fabric as he stands, and the whoosh of the door opening and closing behind him. Your knuckles have stopped bleeding.  
________________

He doesn’t return, not for some time. When you’re moved off of the ship you’ve been held in onto a larger one, you catch a glimpse of him as he marches off in the opposite direction of where you’re being taken. You look over your shoulder for one last impression of the ship - dark, intimidating - and see your younglings being carried off in the arms of some First Order loyalists. There are only three. You turn forward, setting your jaw.

After being thrust into a new cell, you stand for some minutes in silence, your breathing agitated and vision unfocused, before you lunge forward, pounding your fists into the wall relentlessly; this time you feel every blow. You’re crying and blood flecks your cheek, and you think of the six younglings that weren’t spared. You think of the three that most likely won’t survive past the age twenty-five, if that. Your throat grows hoarse quickly, your eyes burn, you become feverish in your resolve to keep going. You will get out of here if it kills you. You will get stronger. It may be hours before you collapse to the ground, arms shaking. 

And thus begins your new life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter things will start to get really interesting :0)


	4. chapter three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for hiatus, school and work's been keeping me busy!! i should be more free soon!

In the following weeks, interchanging torment and days of uninterrupted neglect become things as sure for you as the stars shining on - even if you can’t see them. Troopers - never without their white helmets, white armour, dull dark blasters - come and go from your cell, the time spent with you occupied with threats, reminders of your complete helplessness in captivity, taunting you with descriptions of your parents’ final moments. 

You come to look forward to the blips of time where you’re let be. Their attempts to make you snap - as that’s what you’ve come to believe these are - are entirely unsuccessful; you simply retreat into yourself. Of course you still hear their words, feel their jabs, but at this point, you must pick your battles. So, instead of attempting to fight where you know you could not win or throwing out reckless words that would no doubt worsen your situation, you meditate, palms open, humming soft nonsensical tunes.

When they’re gone, you stretch yourself out before falling into pushups, situps, lunges… you work your muscles to the point where you’re sore all the time. You start to get stronger. You train your mind when you get visitors, testing your patience; you train your body when you’re alone, trying to reach your limits and then go past them.

Time passes slowly.   
________________

If your memory serves you, it’s been nearly a month since you’ve seen Kylo Ren, and you don’t expect his presence anymore. You expect two meals a day and for the lights to click off about an hour after what is meant to pass as supper; in that way, your time is fit neatly into slots of ‘night’ and ‘day’. You expect more neglect than anything, the occasional presence of the troopers growing fewer and farther between; you haven’t seen a human face since the day you were put in this cell.

So when he walks through the door, closer to midday than morning or night, you don’t do well in hiding your surprise. 

“How are you faring? Well?” You don’t answer, instead directing your eyes at the floor in front of your crossed legs. When his monochromatic self settles itself right there, _then_ you look up. He kneels before you, but you can’t sense his intentions. You don’t have a clue what he’s doing on the ground - playing common prisoner? - or what he’s thinking or planning.

“I can’t do this,” you choke out. Your voice sounds strangled but he isn’t using the Force on you. “You’re making me nervous.” He says nothing. You can hear the rasp of his breath through the mask, and when he raises his hands you flinch back. He slows his movements considerably and you watch as his fingers find two points at the bottom of the black and chrome thing; there’s a hiss of air, and then he’s pulling the helmet off. 

You’re surprised again by him today; you didn’t expect to learn the reason for the mask isn’t some hideous deformity, or a medical need. His eyes, it’s their fault; they betray him in a way you’ve never seen before. How could a monster like Kylo Ren have such sorrowful eyes?

You open your mouth, though you’re unsure what you had planned to say, because suddenly his gloved hands are on your cheeks and his lips are against yours, crushing, _soft_ , even while his fingers are gentle. You gasp into his mouth, a burst of anger shooting through you at the same time as your eyes slip closed and you feel an undeniable rush of _attraction_. 

“No!” Your hands find his chest and you push him off, disgust in yourself and in Kylo Ren rushing to your shaking fists. He rocks back onto his heels, observing you with searching eyes, and you say lower, “Don’t even think about touching me.”

You stare at a fixed spot on the ceiling when he stands and takes a step backwards. “If you for one second debated not stopping, I will kill you.”

Before his helmet clicks back into place, you hear words so faint you wonder if you’ve imagined them. 

“I never would have.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i swear to god this wasn't just fanservice, he did what he did for a reason uvu


End file.
